The railgun was for the moment dead said Matthew Karis a defense analyst at
consultancy abacent group. The removal of funding suggests the navy
saw both challenges in implementing the
technology as well as shortcomings in
the projectiles range compared to
hypersonic missiles he said.
The navy's decision to pause research at
year's end frees up resources for
hypersonic missiles, directed energy
systems, like lasers and electronic
warfare systems said Lieutenant Courtney Callahan a navy spokesperson.
Information gleaned during testing will
be retained in the event the office of
naval research wants to pick up where it
left off in the future she added. All told the navy spent about 500
million dollars on research and
development, according to Brian Clark an
analyst at the Hudson Institute.
The technology was close to making the
leap from science fiction to reality in
the 21st century with the testing of
prototypes. The concept held the possibility of
providing an effective weapon at pennies
on the dollars compared to smart bombs
and missiles. That's because rail guns use electricity
instead of gunpowder or jet or rocket
engines, to accelerate a projectile at
six or seven times the speed of sound. that creates enough kinetic energy to
destroy targets.
But there were a number of problems, those included the range of about 110
miles in testing. A Navy Vessel could not employ the gun
without putting itself within range of a
barrage of enemy missiles
and its usefulness for missile defense
was also limited by range and rate of
fire Clark said.
The idea dates back to the
1940s but there have always been major
hurdles because the parallel rails or
conductors are subjected to massive
electric current and magnetic forces
that can cause damage after a few shots
said defense analyst Norman Friedman.
A big question was always whether the
gun could stay together during
continuous firing friedman added. A normal gun can be fired about 600
times before the barrel must be
refurbished but the barrel on the
railgun prototype had to be replaced
after about a dozen or two dozen shots
were fired Clark said.
A few years ago the navy was talking
about putting the gun on the future
warship Lyndon B Johnson, the last of
three stealthy destroyers. It's nearing completion and builder
trials at bath iron works. The 600-foot
long warship uses marine turbines
similar to those that propel the boeing
777 aircraft to help produce up to 78
megawatts of electricity for use in
propulsion, weapons and sensors. That's more than enough electricity for
the railgun and the ship has space
following the cancellation of the
advanced gun system leaving the ship
with no conventional cannon-based weapon.
Tnstead, the navy is pursuing an offshoot
of the railgun. A hyper-velocity
projectile that can be fired from
existing gun systems.
